Clinical trials in Psychopharmacology

Clinical trials of therapeutics are the experiments or observations that are carried out under standard conditions to learn whether the drugs or therapy work well enough, called "efficacy" or "effectiveness"; and to learn whether they are safe enough, called "safety”. While most clinical trials test one alternative to the novel intervention, some expand to three and may include a placebo. The most common clinical trials investigate the efficacy and safety of new pharmaceutical products, biologics, psychological therapies, or other intervent. Clinical trials are commonly classified into five phases namely I, II, III, IV and V. Each phase is treated as a separate clinical trial. The process of drug-development will normally pass through all the five phases over many years.